WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 2011 — To the surprisingly inventive uses for banana peels which include polishing silverware, leather shoes, and the leaves of house plants, scientists have added purification of drinking water contaminated with potentially toxic metals. That’s the topic of the latest episode in the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) award-winning “Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions” podcast series.

It actually points out that minced banana peel performs better than an array of other traditional purification materials.

Gustavo Castro and colleagues note in the podcast that Heavy metals can have adverse health and environmental effects. Current methods of removing heavy metals from water are expensive, and some substances used in the process are toxic themselves.

They discovered that minced banana peel could quickly remove lead and copper from river water as well as, or better than, many other materials. A purification apparatus made of banana peels can be used up to 11 times without losing its metal-binding properties.